Portret van Muzio Attendolo Sforza 1619 - 1675

Lucas Vorsterman I created this print, "Portret van Muzio Attendolo Sforza," an engraving, sometime between 1610 and 1675. Vorsterman, active in the vibrant art scene of the Flemish Baroque, captures the Italian condottiero Muzio Attendolo Sforza, a man who rose from peasant origins to become a powerful military leader. Consider how Vorsterman, working within a society defined by rigid social hierarchies, engages with themes of social mobility and power. The portrait’s subject, a self-made man, disrupts conventional narratives of nobility. This is further complicated by the fact that Vorsterman's teacher, Peter Paul Rubens, originally painted this portrait; it can be seen as a homage to Vorsterman's teacher, and how he, himself, rose to become a master engraver. The clean lines of the engraving lend a stark realism to Sforza's features, inviting us to consider the complexities of identity, ambition, and the narratives we construct about historical figures. The print not only immortalizes a historical figure but also subtly questions the established orders of Vorsterman’s time.